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meitiorial BMm 

of 

Companion Brev)et Brigaaier General B. R. eowen 

and 

Companion CUm« R. Collins 

Delivered at tbe 



Hnnual IHemorial Service 



gomntandery of Obio, 
military Order of tbe Coyal Cegion 

of m mm states 

at 

$t. Pauls m. €. Cburcl), Cincinnati 
may h 1903. 



military Order of tbe Coyal Cegion of tbe Unltea States. 



1)ea(lquartcr$ Commanacrv of the State of ODio. 



Cincinnati, June 15, 1903. 
The Memorial Addresses of Companion Brevet Brig. 
General B, R. Cowen and Companion William R. Collins, 
delivered at the Annual Memorial Service of this Com- 
mandery, at St. Paul's M. E. Church, Cincinnati, on Sunday 
evening, May 3, 1903, are printed and distributed under 
resolution adopted at the Annual Meeting, May 6, 1903. 

W. R. THRALL, 

Recorder. 



ADDRESS OF 
COMPANION BVT. BRIG. GENERAL B. R, COWEN. 



There is a something in association which always tempts 
me, when I stand in a place like this, to do as the regular 
minister does, and select a text for such remarks as may fol- 
low. And as I know of no legal prohibition civil or ecclesias- 
tical, of such a proceeding, I ask your attention for a few 
minutes to a text to be found in the nth verse of the 20th 
chapter of the First Book of Kings : 

"Let not him that girdeth on his armor boast himself as he that 
putteth it off." 

The author of that injunction was in no sense a model 
ruler, nor a model man. On the contrary he never could 
have been a member of the Ohio Commandery of the Loyal 
Legion for many good and sufficient reasons. But at the 
time he gave that injunction he was under the special favor 
of Almighty God who was giving him one more trial. 

However, be that as it may, the injunction was wise and 
good, though, like a good many public speakers, both lay and 
clerical. King Ahab was something like the fingerboard at 
the parting of the ways which faithfully points the right way, 
but never travels that way itself. 

The Companions whose names are specially in our 
thoughts to-night, and in whose memory we are drawn to- 
gether by a common patriotic impulse on this holy day, as 
was becoming to good soldiers, put off their armor only when 
they passed from this life into the great beyond. 

Their account here is closed and we may contemplate 
their lives as a well rounded and completed whole. They 
were tried and not found wanting ; tried in the thrice-heated 
furnace of a mighty war, where men fought and bled and 
died for a great principle, where the life of a Nation, the 

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prosperity of a people were at stake ; tried in the many and 
diverse vicissitudes of an active and strenuous civil life with 
its carking cares, its weighty responsibilities and demoralizing 
influences ; tried in the manifold and insidious temptations of 
social life so often tending to weaken the moral fibre and sap 
the manhood, and that they were not found wanting is proved 
in the fact that they were honored members of the Military 
Order of the Loyal Legion. 

The armor which they girded on when the heyday in 
their blood was fierce and bounding, the form stalwart and 
the eye bright, has fallen from the nerveless arm and from the 
shrunken form as it stooped to enter "the low, green tent 
whose curtain never outward swings." So that as soldiers in 
war, as citizens in peace, as friends and companions and 
neighbors, in every relation of life they have won the en- 
comium: "Well done, good and faithful servants," and have 
entered on their reward. 

How can we best honor the memories of these Com- 
panions now that they have answered the final roll call here 
and awakened to the reveille of the eternal morning? 

They and those who have preceded them in the never 
ending procession passing within the veil devoted their young 
lives to their country forty years ago, and, their duty done in 
that behalf as soldiers, their work accomplished with honor, 
devoted their matured powers as patriotic citizens to the 
development and betterment of the institutions they had 
offered their lives to defend and preserve. 

Could they tell us their wishes they would certainly insist 
that we so live and act as to perpetuate and strengthen and 
elevate a form of government and a code of conduct for which 
they risked so much ; that we seek out and endeavor to es- 
tablish that policy best calculated to improve the moral and 
intellectual condition of the people, which is, after all, the best 
way, if not the only way, to increase the real strength and 
prosperity of a nation. 

We can, therefore, best honor these memories by emulating 
their virtues, carrying on to completion their commendable en- 
terprises, and in the effort to make our lives what they should be. 

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The civil war was a mere episode in the history of the 
nation and in the lives of those actively engaged in it. Life 
since the war has been, to the most of you, a more strenuous 
struggle than the battles and marches in which you took part. 
The odds against you have often been greater, death has been 
near many times and your courage has been as severely tried 
as when " the scream of shot and burst of shell " scattered 
panic and death. So that life is a continuous conflict. 

While it is much to have been a brave soldier in war, it is 
sometimes more to be a brave and faithful citizens in peace, for 

"Peace hath her victories 
No less renowned than war." 

One who constantly looks backward across the interven- 
ing years to the scenes and incidents of the war, and finds 
nothing in his life to be proud of except the part he bore in 
the great struggle, unmindful of the never ending conflict 
between the forces of good and evil which rages wherever 
humanity dwells in which he has borne no part, though he may 
have been the bravest of the brave in the dash and glory of 
the battle field can hardly expect to rank as a good soldier in 
the highest and best sense of the word. 

We should be careful not to fall into the too common 
error that courage and patriotism and love of country have 
relation only to war time and battle fields. They have a far 
more comprehensive meaning which all men should under- 
stand. 

That a man was a soldier and fought for his country in 
no sense exempts him from serving his country with equal 
fidelity and courage in lime of peace in such place and man- 
ner as will best promote his country's welfare, and the good 
of his fellows. The heroism of private life often exceeds that 
required of the soldier in active service. The theory of armv 
organization and discipline is that every soldier in the ranks 
stands ready at all times and under all circumstances to make 
the supreme sacrifice if need be, and if he fail when called on 
his disgrace is indelibly fixed. 

But, in time of peace, unfortunately, there is no such 



theory in respect of the duties of a citizen and the result is 
that cowardice is the rule and goes unpunished, if not un- 
noticed. 

I will not admit of any superior in respect for and ad- 
miration of the heroism and sacrifices of our soldiers and I 
always feel like saluting the maimed veteran, but I have 
greater admiration for the moral hero in civil life who has the 
courage to live up to the highest standard of duty and to follow 
that standard day after day, in prosperity and adversity, 
through a life time, in spite of boycott and social ostracism and 
ridicule. 

If every soldier of our great civil war had been as true to 
the highest and best interests of the country and society since 
the war as he was during the period of enlistment do you not 
think we would now have a better condition of things in many 
respects in all our communities? To such men the world has 
ever pointed with pride, and when they put off their armor 
has truly mourned their departure and kept their memory 
green. Of such it could well be said, as Carlyle said of Sir 
Walter Scott: "When he departed he took a man's life with 
him." 

The French have an expression which contains the idea 
I would convey: Noblesse oblige; meaning that certain obli- 
gations attach necessarily to patents of nobility not expected 
elsewhere. He who risked his life for his country is in a 
certain sense ennobled, and therefore incurs peculiar obliga- 
tions to society which he cannot shirk without disgrace. 

Nearly all the great titles of the old world date from the 
career of some successful soldier. If it conferred nobility to 
have fought at Fontenay, at Agincourt or at Waterloo, how 
much more were those ennobled who followed the flag at 
Gettysburg, at Vicksburg or at Shiloh? Those obligations 
should hold us to the faithful discharge of the highest duties 
of citizenship. 

The same qualities which make the good soldier will 
make the good citizen. Submission to legal authority and a 
well ordered life are as much the duty of the citizen as of the 
soldier. It was these qualities in our soldiers which gave us 

6 



a conquering army. It is the same qualities in our citizens 
which insure a peaceful, happy and prosperous government. 
The greatness of the greatest soldier is dimmed and dis- 
appears in the presence of the greatness of principle. Wash- 
ington is greater and better known because of his wisdom 
as a ruler than for his skill as a soldier. John Howard, the 
martyr to humanity, Owen Lovejoy, the martyr to freedom, 
Savonarola, the martyr to religious liberty ; the unfaltering 
champion of unpopular truth, who, alone, unsupported and 
despised, lives and endures, calmly and resolutely, the most 
prolonged and exquisite persecution which a single recanting 
word might avoid, is as far above and beyond the mere soldier 
as the sky is above the earth. The poet understood it for the 
purposes of the lesson he would teach when he wrote : 

"While Valor's haughty champions wait, 
Till all their scars are shown, 
Love walks unchallenged through the gate 
And sits beside the throne." 

The story of a noble life is the best of all moral tonics ; 
the most effective of all teaching ; the most persuasive and 
inspiring of all human influences. Such stories render hero- 
ism and nobility of character contagious. The great man, if 
he also have a great character, is a constant lesson to his 
generation. Whether in silence or in speech, he enforces, by 
virtue of his example, the reality of the noblest ideals. 

The highest enjoyment of life has little relation to the 
ordinary surroundings of ease and comfort. It comes rather 
from a consciousness of ability to suffer and endure and ac- 
complish ; from the feeling that one is filling a man's place, 
doing a man's work, earning a man's wages. Probably no 
life is fully happy that has not in it some real surrender ; 
which has not drank some cup of experience to the dregs ; 
spent itself in some great service. Only a great life can know 
of life's great resources and its great rewards. A definite and 
worthy object is the surest protection from the sorrows that 
ebb and flow about the pathway of men. It is work, not ease 
and comfort that is the greatest joy of living, especially if that 
work have a noble purpose. 

7 



Who can rightly measure the influence of those great 
characters of the past who arose in the intellectual gloom of 
an earlier time and became instrumental in lifting the race to 
a higher plane, heralding the dawn of a better era, who left 
the impress of their word and deed to bless the coming ages. 
Each receding wave as it swept into the dim unknown has 
transmitted that influence to the following wave with an 
added force, and those great characters of the past have been 
immortalized by the imitation and adoration of the wise and 
good of the succeeding generations. 

But patriotism in its higher sense is more than a mere 
sentiment. The qualities which go to make up the true 
patriot must be lived, not merely professed ; they must be 
felt not merely talked about. Good deeds must be done and 
done with proper motives, not merely admired and praised 
when done by others. 

We cannot be ciphers in life's battle, though some of us 
come mighty near it. All men have an influence on all other 
men. We are a part of our environment and act upon and 
are acted upon by it. Neither can we escape from our sur- 
roundings, nor our responsibilities without treason to society. 
We are bound to perform our share of the world's work in 
whatever position we are placed. What that work is we may 
not always know, nor yet our relation to it, or our share in it, 
but we are doing it nevertheless. 

The laborer who operates the Jacquard loom merely 
moves the beam to and fro. He knows nothing of the quality 
of the work that is being done, nor why he is chosen for so 
simple a task. He can see only the seamy side of the fabric 
that grows and rolls up before him. A more acute intellect 
has traced the model ; a trained hand has set the warp ; a 
practised eye has regulated the pattern of which the workman 
knows nothing. It is only when the web is complete and 
opened to the light that he can see the beauty of form and 
harmony of color that he has wrought. 

A keener intellect than ours has modelled the world's 
destiny and we are here, each in his place to do his part to 
make or mar that destiny, to hasten or delay its accomplish- 



ment. From the wilderness of Midian of 3,400 years ago to 
the African wilderness of to-day men have been chosen by a 
power above them to work out the plans of the Great Architect 
and that He has guided them is shown in the character and 
result of their labors. Cromwell and Hampden, and Sidney 
and Washington and Havelock and Lincoln and Gordon and 
Stanley were thus chosen and guided and the world is better 
that they have lived. 

Men who take counsel of their fears are of little real 
account in the world. They magnify obstacles and minify 
helps. There are lions in the way and they never come near 
enough to see the chains that render them harmless. Shadows 
seem substantial and dreams realities. God seems far away 
and the devil is ever at the elbow. Men thus moved and acted 
upon are cowards, without confidence in themselves, faith in 
their fellows, or trust in God. In great emergencies they are 
ciphers. When men are needed they never come forward and 
are never thought of. 

There is nothing in science, or philosophy, or business, or 
society, to amend or strengthen such characters. No mere 
mental process will avail. There are depths in our nature 
which philosophy has not sounded, heights which science has 
not scaled. 

The ten spies saw only the giants, the roaring torrents and 
the walled cities and their hearts became as water. Caleb 
and Joshua saw the same obstacle and gave to them their full 
force and effect, but they saw also 

"God standing in the shadow, 
Keeping watch above his own," 

and would go forward. 

After all, this is the great secret of the difference in men. 
He who knows only the secrets of nature as revealed by 
science, and the relation of things only as disclosed by the 
reasoning of the philosophers is but half developed. This 
world, where he can remain but a few years at best, limits 
his vision, contains all his hopes, circumscribes his ambitions. 
When it glides from beneath his feet all is gone. He has no 

9 



other possession, no other standpoint. The bludgeon of the 
assassin may destroy him utterly. Disease wipes him out as 
with a sponge. If he have courage in danger it is but the 
courage of pride. Of real moral courage and its source he 
has no conception. 

Genuine courage is that which sustains men in misfortune, 
in unmerited disgrace, in misery and pain and sickness, and 
holds them true to their higher nature and to God, and it 
comes only to those whose hope and faith are stayed on Him. 

The brave man ranges himself on the right side when it 
costs something to do so, while the coward lies in ambush and 
throws stones. When the right prevails, as it always does, 
sooner or later, the cowards come out of their cover, fill the 
front seats and boast of the virtue they had ridiculed and 
persecuted. 

The thumb screw and the rack of the 17th century would 
have utterly destroyed the virtue that is the glory of the 19th 
but for those stern men for whom pain and death had no 
terrors, and whose iron will no torture could bend. The real 
heroes of the past are those who stood alone for the right, their 
only support that clairvoyant vision of the future, that golden 
beam of justice, the perfect revelation of God's design. 

Such men regard not the verdict of the world, if that 
verdict be wrong. They care nothing for the applause of men 
if it can only be won at the expense of integrity and self- 
respect, and manhood and virtue. It is those who have ex- 
emplified that high courage to whom the world at last gives 
its highest honors, and its most enduring memory. 

The world's verdict of to-day is not what it was last year, 
nor what it will be next year. " Hail" and " Hosanna," 
to-day, and " Crucify Him," to-morrow is a fair sample of the 
uncertainty of that which men call " public sentiment." 

Washington was jeered, and hooted and almost mobbed 
in a street of the national capital because he would not yield 
to a public sentiment which clamored for a breach of the 
national honor. Men of such character, no matter how 
humble, wield an influence the world dreams not of until it 
has borne fruit. 

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The condition and needs of the race offer an unlimited 
field for the display of all that is best in men. In ministry to 
the suffering, in searching after nature's secrets, in the spread 
of our civilization, in teaching the true spirit of freedom, there 
opens up a field in which are abundant opportunities to develop 
and arouse the highest qualities of which the human soul is 
capable. It is only those who have been thus developed who 
have shown themselves equal to the greatest efforts and 
sacrifices. 

Companions and friends, if what I have said here to-night 
shall have the effect to induce you to look upon the higher 
duties and responsibilities of life as of binding obligation, my 
purpose will be accomplished, and nothing save the parting 
word remains to be spoken. 

We meet here but to part. We shall probably never all 
meet again. There is no eternal meeting save that which 
unites those whose memories we cherish. In peace they rest 
till the last trumpet shall sound the assembly on the eternal 
morning. Then shall the dead of both armies come to the 

call: 

" These in the robings of glory 
Those in the gloom of defeat ; 
All in the battle blood gory, 
In the dusk of eternity meet." 

Those who wore the blue and those who wore the gray 
shall meet again, face to face, enemies no more but, reconciled 
at last by the soothing influence of the long rest in the grave. 
And while Omnipotence itself is powerless to make the right 
wrong, or the wrong right, yet in the incomparable glory oj 
that upper world we shall know as we are known, and neither 
the paeans of our victory nor the lamentations of their defeat 
shall mar the eternal harmony. 

" Then let us toil with arms unstained 
That at last we may be worthy to stand 

On the shining heights they've gained. 
We shall meet them and greet in closing ranks 

In Time's declining sun, 
When the bugles of God shall sound a recall, 

And the battle of life be won." 

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ADDRESS OF 
COMPANION WILLIAM R. COLLINS, 



This beautiful service is dedicated to the memory of those 
of our Commandery who have died during the past year. In 
the month of May, in some House of God, we annually 
assemble to pay a mark of tribute to the memory of those 
whose names are inscribed on our ever increasing roll that 
have passed to the great beyond. 

But in a larger sense, we are here, not only to pay tribute 
to those who have died during the past year, but to those who 
fell in the great struggle ; to those who have died since the 
war ; and to those who are still permitted to be with us to 
enjoy the blessings of life. 

Every memorial service of this character is a tribute to 
the great cause, for which so many gave their last full measure 
of devotion. 

Scattered throughout the world, are some forty-five 
recognized Orders. In many countries they are only per- 
mitted to decorate the nobility, those, who by birth, have at 
once inherited superior advantages and opportunities. 

In many other countries, it is a mark of distinguished 
military service, gained as the contending armies of Europe 
have marched against each other and drenched their countries 
in blood ; gained in the fierce battles that have changed the 
map of the World. 

In this country, we have but three. The Order of the 
Cincinnati, the Grand Army of the Republic, and the Military 
Order of the Loyal Legion. 

They are founded on American Patrotism. A patrotism, 
not of religious fanaticism, not of love of conquest and of 
power ; but of loftier and nobler, the love of home, the love 
of liberty and the love of justice. The War of the Revolution 

12 



was not a war of conquest — it was a war in defense of the 
American home ; it was a war against oppression ; against 
injustice and unjust taxation. 

The Minute Man, as he stood on the banks of the Con- 
cord, and met the trained British Soldier, httle realized that 
his shot would be heard around the world. And as the sturdy- 
Sons of Liberty rose up to cast off a great power, they es- 
tablished on this continent of ours, a new principle in the 
government of nations, that found expression in the Declara- 
tion of Independence. 

A principle that said that all men in the eyes of the law, 
are created equal. That they have certain rights for the pro- 
tection of which governments are instituted among men de- 
riving their just power from the consent of the governed. 

And when the war was over, and a new nation was es- 
tablished ; when Washington met his fellow officers in a 
tearful farewell, they established the order of the Cincinnati, 
named after that brave old Roman " Cincinnatus," who had 
quitted his plow, as they had done, to engage in war, but who 
returned to the pursuits of peace when the war was over. 

The War of the Rebellion was in defense of those same 
principles. Standing on the battle field of Gettysburg, in 
1863, Abraham Lincoln, said: 

"Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this 
continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the propo- 
sition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil 
war, testing whether that nation, or any other nation so conceived and so 
dedicated, can long endure." 

To-night in the fullness of national greatness ; of un- 
bounded commercial prosperity ; of unlimited wealth and 
opportunity, we are glad to feel that this proposition has stood 
the test of time. We are glad to feel that out of the great 
crisis, has come a united country, under one flag, beloved at 
home, and honored and respected abroad. 

In a debate in Congress, James A. Garfield, once said : 

" In 1620 there was planted in this country, two ideas hostile to each 
other. The one at Plymouth Rock from the May Flower, the other from a 

13 



Dutch Brig at Jamestown, Virginia. One was a doctrine of Luther, that 
private judgment in politics as well as religion was the right of every man ; 
the other, that capital should own labor. 

For two centuries there was no serious collision, but when Roundhead 
and Cavalier began to jostle each other, near enough to measure opinions, 
the two doctrines began to appear." 

It was this doctrine that brought on our Civil War. For 
years collision was avoided, but when the stirring eloquence 
of Daniel Webster began to plead for liberty and union, when 
our territory began to expand further and further westward, 
when the leaders of the two ideas began to struggle for that 
rich and fertile territory that lay beyond the Mississippi, the 
people saw the danger. Fierce were the debates in Congress. 
Bitter was the feeling between the states rights and national 
sovereignty. But when the war became inevitable, we had 
loyal and brave men in the North ; men who rallied to the 
support of their country ; men who marched away to the stir- 
ring drum beat of the nation. The issue was firmly met. 
From cruel war came a united nation ; and when peace was 
o'er the land, and a race set free, and the volunteer soldier 
had returned to the pursuits of peace, these were the men, 
who to-day wear the emblem of the Grand Army of the 
Republic, and the badge of the Military Order of the Loyal 
Legion. 

For some time we have been permitted, as a younger gener- 
ation to meet with the Loyal Legion by right of inheritance. 
I am here to speak for the members of the second class. As 
time goes on, our members will increase. Few among us to- 
day are entitled to become members of the Order of the Cin- 
cinnati. The Grand Army of the Republic have thus far 
not extended their privileges of membership to sons of 
Veterans, and it remains for us, as the second generation, to 
hand down, not the bitterness, but the tender memories of the 
Civil War to the succeeding generation. 

But there is another thought. It has been said that 
on the 6th of December, 1863, while anchored off Morris 
Island, Admiral Dahlgren, from his flag-ship, the " Philadel- 
phia," observed from his squadron a sinking iron clad. There 
had been no battle ; the sea was calm, still the " Weehawken " 

14 



was sinking, and no one could tell the reason. She had been 
foremost in the struggle for the recapture of Fort Sumter. 
She had been active in the campaign off Charleston Harbor. 
She had aided in the capture of Fort Wagner. From the 
mystery of that December day, it was discovered that her plates 
had became loosened, her hull strained, and she sank from 
the weakness of her previous great service. And the thought 
comes to us to-night that the old soldiers of the War of the 
Rebellion are rapidly passing away, many of them before 
their time. They too, are sinking from the weakness of the 
previous great service. Many carry to their graves the scars 
of battle, and many, many more have patiently gone on in the 
years that have followed the war struggling against disease 
incurred in the long marches, the great exposures and the 
weary hospitals of pain. The 30th of May is set apart as 
National Memorial Day. In a few weeks we will see the 
veterans bearing their tattered battle flags, marching to the 
cemeteries to scatter flowers over the graves of the dead. 
One of the beautiful things we see on Decoration Day is the 
thousands of little school children marching in the memorial 
parade. They are early learning the inspirations of patriot- 
ism that caused so many to enlist to battle for the Union. 
Throughout the land are more lasting memorials. Every 
large city in the North has some monument, some building 
to honor those who served in the War of the Rebellion. 
Only a short time ago the people of this county voted 
$250,000.00 for a memorial building to commemorate Cincin- 
nati in the war. 

But memorial day is not only observed throughout the 
North, but in the South as well. On the great battle fields, 
now National Parks, will come on Decoration Day, the sons 
and daughters of the Southland, who will scatter flowers 
with an impartial hand alike for the Blue and the Gray. 

" No more shall the war cry sever 
Or the winding rivers be red 
They banish our anger forever 
When they laurel the graves of our dead." 

We have already lived to see the boys of the North and 

15 



012 195 877 6 

the boys of the South march out together, shoulder to shoulder, 
under one flag to meet the enemies of our common country. 
We saw them camped side by side under the same banner, 
where thirty-six years before their fathers fought the great 
battle of Chickamauga, and we saw a great army corps march 
into Havana led by General Fitzhugh Lee, of Virginia, with 
General J. Warren Keifer, of this Commandery, second in 
command. 

We have lived to carry out the principle of Abraham 
Lincoln, " with malice towards none and charity for all." We 
know no North, no South, no East, no West ; we are one united 
country. 

So to-night as we close this service let us resolve to keep 
green the memory of our honored dead. With but one ex- 
ception, every name on our long roll this year, is the name of 
some officer of the War of the Rebellion, who shared in the 
glories and the hardships of the great struggle. We are glad 
to feel that they were spared to return from that war. They 
have lived through a great era in the history of our country, 
and now in the autumn of their lives, they have laid their 
burdens down. 

" The muffled drum's last beat is heard, 

The Soldier's last tattoo, 
No more on life's parade shall meet. 

That brave and fallen few. 
On Fame's immortal camping ground. 

Their silent tents are spread. 
While glory waits with solemn round 

The bivouac of the dead." 



16 



